Turning

I am leaving this world for the next.

Everything about me is getting ready.

My nails unhinge,

my heart loses it’s grip.

My clothes have outgrown me.

My poetry calls on the phone

and hangs up.

My family watches me

the way we watch shuttles

disappear into space.

My lover counts the days

like a prisoner – scratching them

into the bedroom wall.

I am leaving here

and taking my things:

my dog,

my blue flannel shirt,

my wrong memories

of my childhood.

I am packing it up,

all the time rushing,

preparing,

making a map,

carving my name,

burying proof I existed,

trying to nail something down,

to staple my past

to the ground,

to make sure it all happened.

So at least someday

I can come back

and look.